What have we learnt from him? Nothing from him; much from his grub. This grub, so poor in sensory organs, gives us with its prescience no little food for reflection. It knows that the coming Beetle will not be able to cut himself a road through the oak and it bethinks itself of opening one for him at its own risk and peril. It knows that the Cerambyx, in his stiff armour, will never be able to turn and make for the orifice of the cell; and it takes care to fall into its nymphal sleep with its head to the door. It knows how soft the pupa's flesh will be and upholsters the bedroom with velvet. It knows that the enemy is likely to break in during the slow work of the transformation and, to set a bulwark against his attacks, it stores a calcium pap inside its stomach. It knows the future with a clear vision, or, to be accurate, behaves as though it knew the future. Whence did it derive the motives of its actions? Certainly not from the experience of the senses. What does it know of the outside world? Let us repeat, as much as a bit of an intestine can know. And this sense-less creature astounds us! I regret that the clever logician, instead of conceiving a statue smelling a rose, did not imagine it gifted with some instinct. How quickly he would have recognized that, quite apart from sense-impressions, the animal, including man, possesses certain psychological resources, certain inspirations that are innate and not acquired! CHAPTER VIII THE PROBLEM OF THE SIREX The cherry-tree supports a small jet-black Capricorn, _Cerambyx cerdo_, whose larval habits it was as well to study in order to learn whether the instincts are modified when the form and the organization remain identical. Has this pigmy of the family the same talents as the giant, the ravager of the oak-tree? Does it work on the same principles? The resemblance between the two, both in the larval state and in that of the perfect insect, is complete; the denizen of the cherry-tree is an exact replica, on a smaller scale, of the denizen of the oak. If instinct is the inevitable consequence of the organism, we ought to find in the two insects a strict similarity of habits; if instinct is, on the other hand, a special aptitude favoured by the organs, we must expect variations in the industry exercised. For the second time the alternative is forced upon our attention: do the implements govern the practice of the craft, or does the craft govern the employment of the implements? Is instinct derived from the organ, or is the organ instinct's servant? An old dead cherry-tree will answer our question.